TCPALM: Gil Smart: Will you bring algae into the voting booth?

On Friday, the Army Corps of Engineers stopped the discharges from Lake Okeechobee — 279 days after they began.

I went to take a look at the St. Lucie River in Stuart on Thursday afternoon. It was brown, not green. There was no algae in sight. And with it gone, and the dry season upon us, the sense of immediacy that gripped the region is diminishing. You can feel it.